Synopsis

 Zhang's romantic film is a lushly photographed tale of how a village teacher and a peasant girl fall in love in 1957 during the "Anti-Rightist" campaign. In a small northern village, the widow of a teacher insists that all the local funeral traditions be upheld, no matter how dated or inconvenient they seem. Observing her grief-stricken intransigence, her only son (who left the village long ago to work in the city) recalls the story of his parents' courtship in the 1950s.

Director Zhang Yimou, 49 and considered by many to be China's best director, said he had tried to show "emotions" and that he felt the Chinese "should go back to true values" as everything has become a commodity and for sale in the current culture. Zhang sees China's present in grey monochrome but devotes most of the film to flashbacks in rapturous colour. Despite the fraught politics of the past, he suggests, people used to be emotionally tougher and more true to each other.

Shot right after Not One Less, his Venice prizewinner, The Road Home shows another side of Zhang Yimou. In earlier films, his romantic streak has always been offset by an underlying fatalism, but here in a celebration of the values he fears China is losing he gives it free rein.

French officials had rejected this film in 1999 for competition in the Cannes festival. Zhang said Cannes thought the film was "political" but that he disagreed. Ironically, the film won the jury's Grand Prix Silver Berlin Bear at the 2000 Berlin International Film Festival.

Crew

Director: Zhang Yimou;
Producer: Zhang Weiping;
Screenplay: Bao Shi;
Cast: Zhang Ziyi, Sun Honglei, Zheng Hao;
Production: Beijing New Images Film Company & Guangxi Film Studio.